Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good morning, this is September 22nd, 2026. It's 8.30 in the morning. And we're here for a very important meeting with the folks from Guaymas Island. And it's talking about resolution number R202-60089. And we will be going through the list of people who would like to speak. I think we're going to have a little bit of a preliminary from...

Yeah, I have a few words to share with you.

Okay, great.

So yeah, there is a public hearing resolution as you said number two zero two six zero zero eight nine to establish a resolution for the 2027 very fair schedule we're here today to for the public hearing the process the Public Works has followed for bringing this to you today it was outlined in a resolution in two zero two three uh zero one five two so that's a 2023 resolution signed by the board on july 27 2023 the resolution set a fair box recovery of 65 percent by december 31st 2028 In the resolution, the Ferry Division of Public Works is directed to prepare an annual report pursuant to the revenue target formula and recommend a ferry rate schedule for the upcoming calendar year with an estimate of revenues based on the rates prepared following the adopted methodology. Before you today is our resolution R20250259 and R20260089 establishing the 2027 Gleams Island ferry fare schedule. No actions necessary today, but following the methodology and the resolution is how we brought this to you today. So that 2027 fair proposal following the current methodology includes a 14% increase to meet a 60% fair box recovery target in 2027, as outlined in the 2026 fairy fair revenue target report. So we've received many comments written. Those should have been provided to the board. Today is an opportunity for you to hear more verbally from others. So with that, I will also want to mention that since our county email is changing, the ferry comment email address, the old one, I've been told by Central Services that both will work. so you know please let us know if there's any questions or concerns but we're in that transition period between emails and yeah we've been assured that both will work for the foreseeable future because some older documentation had the old ferry comment email address and some of the new stuff is slightly different great so with that i'm happy to hear is commissioner weeson great okay

I do have to say we've had some very good conversations with many of you. I also thank you. The tone of letters has changed. It's constructive. We've had some really good ideas. In many ways, the whole conversation has become much more productive, and I'm feeling very much like we can get someplace that's going to benefit us all. So thank you all for that.

um you know i want to say that i appreciate staff and all the work that you put into this and into the ferries because i know that it is a lot of work to keep a ferry system running reliably so people can get to and from the island so i wanted to thank you for the hard work on that and for working within the directive of the commissioners. I've seen negativity towards staff, and I want you to remember that they are following the direction of commissioners and what has been set out before them. They're doing their job to the best of their ability, and I appreciate you for that. I do. I also want to say that I'd like to hear suggestions for simpler ways that we can move forward and still reach recovery. I want to see us improve relationships. As Commissioner Browning said, I think that there has been a bit of an improvement recently, and I want to see that continue. I want to see us to have more productive dialogue And I want to see us find ways that we can reach the cost recovery while still giving you the opportunity to travel to where you need to be and be able to afford to live and continue to enjoy your life on the island. And I also want to remind people the importance of civil discourse. I heard something while I was sitting up here from the audience. I heard you can get your digs in. And it won't be productive. It won't help us work together. um if we want a more productive relationship if we want to figure out a better way for this to work that's that's not going to help us so you can say what you want to say i'm not telling what you can't we cannot say but i want us to find a better way to work together and so trying to be productive trying to leave as much we can what's passed in the past and look forward at what we can do to make this better that's really what i'd love to see

so i'd appreciate hearing your comments today and uh i'll turn it back over to thank you i do have to say so so young yet so thoughtful thank you just all right um do we have anything else from the We're gonna go to the room first and on line second, if that sounds good to everyone. And I'm gonna go ahead and call out the names and I'm gonna call out the second person in line to go essentially on deck so they're prepared to go. Let's start with Michael Brown, Michael. And behind that will be Peter Castle.

Commissioner Browning?

Yes, Commissioner Wheaton, I'm sorry. I did not give you your check, yes.

No, you didn't. You just skipped right over me. I just want to make sure that people are aware that I'm listening to this and paying attention to it. And I appreciate what both my fellow professors said. And yes, we have to come up with a simpler system to make it work to go forward in the future. So definitely appreciate all the comments that have come in ahead of time with some of the suggestions. And I really think we can come up with something different going forward. So once again, thank you.

Great. Thank you. And my apologies for forgetting you.

right now okay thanks uh michael brown four three six six clark point road guaymas island i've been up here a number of times and i uh first of all i want to say i appreciate commissioner burns coming out to guaymas island uh last friday uh you heard we were i think enthusiastic and productive and you saw sort of the passion of the island for this stuff. And I also appreciate the idea of being more collaborative. We don't like being adversarial. You see the people here in the audience, we've been working on this for a long time. And we live it every day, right? So this is our reality. I have only three quick comments, three asks, if you will. And they are along that collaborative point that Commissioner Burns was talking about. One is I'd like to be, it's important to incentivize people driving on the ferry. That's how you guys get your revenue. We've seen fair elasticity. So how do we incentivize it? I think by having certainly, I would ask that we do not have a fair increase this year. we pause it, let the island absorb the last three fare increases, and along that same line, perhaps have runs that are slightly less expensive in the middle of the day that, you know, Commissioner Burns, you had that idea, you know, some way to fill up the boats that are not being filled up. Number two is So that was the multi-ride discount, correct? Yeah. Brain cramp here. I'd like to see the citizens, a citizens group formed. We're the only ferry district that doesn't have that. It's important for us to have a conversation back and forth about this issue. We're obviously well informed, but we could certainly together maybe find some more constructive ways to manage this ferry. And lastly, I think it's maybe incumbent for the county to look at ways to reduce overhead and costs. So those are three ideas that I think, and I look forward to having perhaps Commissioner Browning and Commissioner Wiesen come over to the island and have an evening with us at the store. You'll see a polite and enthusiastic crowd. So again, thank you very much. Thank you.

All right, Peter Castle.

Yeah, yeah. Hello, Peter Castle. I'm on Saddlebag Lane there on Guaymas. And I don't have any prepared comments. I actually just rolled back into town. I just wanted to bring up along the same theme. We had the ferry advisory committee for the new ferry. which I think was a great success. I just wanted to put it forward as an example of working together and using the resources and intelligence of the community to come up with answers. And I think, you know, I would think that likely saved tens of thousands of dollars in consulting fees, and it likely saves us millions of dollars on a new ferry. So I think that's, a prime example of working with the community to come up with answers. So as an extension of that and writing on the success of that, again, to have a more open dialogue with people who are living the experience and going through it, to give some tangible good feedback on what works since we're in the middle of it. It seems like we've been doing a lot of things trying to make it a simpler system, but making it simpler, it seems like we've got layers and layers and layers and it's getting a bit more top heavy. So if we wanna cut costs and make it as affordable and efficient and productive as possible, again with the premise of this meeting is to take in the information and feedback from the people who live there and we would appreciate it and we want just as much as you all do we want a nice cooperative collaborative friendly process based on respect with a common goal of making it work as best as it can as cost effectively as it can thank you for your

alan bush and after that cindy camp good morning commissioners alan bush 6628 west shore drive i'm uh i'm the chairman of the guinness island ferry committee um And I think this is kind of a simple decision today anyway. Before we raise fares again, we need to make sure that the formula we're using is a good one. Right now the fair calculation doesn't just look at what we're actually spending or Actual costs it has projections and budgets in there And I think budgets and projections are good for managing the system, but when we experience a eight hundred and fifty thousand dollar difference between actual and and what we think we're going to spend for the last three years. I think it should be applied to fares. Those aren't receipts. Those are assumptions. And I think assumptions are good. But when we actually pay more or we are expected to pay more, it's difficult to reconcile from an island standpoint. There's another piece to this. It matters too. People are taking fewer trips. They're deciding to leave their car on one side or the other, and that affects revenue. and maybe traveling less to once a week as opposed to, I've heard people in the past taking the ferry three times a day. So there's a incentive there to encourage people, fill the ferry and return revenue. So fare increase on paper doesn't necessarily mean the same increase in revenue in the fare box. We've raised rates recently. That gives something of value. Actual experience is what we're looking for. So why not use that? We have a ferry committee. Many of these islanders are participating in that. idea of having a fairy committee and resolving questions. 80% of the issues can be figured out before we get to you in this room and make decisions easier for you to make at no cost. We're volunteers. We've got accountants, engineers, civic administrators, all people willing to contribute, analyze things, and we just need a little more time ahead of a decision to make that happen. So my suggestion would be we're here. We have a ferry committee. Let's leverage that, leverage the community to contribute. So thank you.

Great. Thank you, Alan. Cindy.

Good morning, commissioners. Cindy Camp, 6729 West Shore Drive. Two pier ferries have had big wins in the past couple of years. Whatcom secured a $25 million federal grant toward a new ferry. It also voted to enact a ferry taxing district it helped to create by amending a state RCW. Pierce County changed another RCW so it can sign long-term repair contracts. Those wins did not come from people arguing past each other. Riders, advisory committees, staff, and elected officials worked the same problem, and the results will serve their ferry systems for decades to come. So what happened to the Guemes ferry team, the one that existed in one form or another for decades? In July of 2023, with the passage of R20230152, Islanders were taken off the team. We didn't end up in a courtroom because citizens tied you up in methodology. We got here because the ridership was taken out of the conversation. Recently, I learned that in March of 2026, your staff reclassified to capital fund 800, 174,000 of 2024 crucible engineering expenses for the engineering power project that was charged to O&M, months after the books had closed. This did not lower the 2024 O&M actuals that sit squarely in the 2026 target report that created this fair proposal that you are considering today. And your staff still says there's no capital in this target report. We understand the ferry is expensive, and we're not asking for a free ride, nor have we ever. And today we were asked to bring solutions, so here are a few of mine. One, hold off on the 27 fare increase. Adopt a 20% multi-ride discount in line with peer ferries. Create a fare methodology that anyone can understand that is based on actual numbers and includes all ferry revenue. And last but not least, bring back the island-elected Guaymas Island Ferry Committee for at least one year with a public works liaison and someone from your office in the room to work together to create a new charter for a ferry committee that can be a foundation of a team that this ferry system needs for the long-term sustainability and one everyone can be proud of. The challenges now ahead for this ferry and the wins that our peers are achieving can be accomplished only if we work together as a team. Please tell Writership today that this fair proposal will not go forward on October 20th, and please put an end to the chaos and dysfunction that was created by R20230152. Protecting the Writership is protecting the County Road Fund, and together, that is all we have is to work together as a team. Thank you.

Thank you, Cindy. Steve Orsini. And after Steve, there is Glenville.

So I'm Steve Orsini, 4971 Guemis Island Road on Guemis. The Lifeline Guemis Island ferry has a major cost problem. Drastic ferry increases have now hit a diminishing return while making continued living on the island untenable for young families who must work off island and for retirees on fixed incomes. the total operation and maintenance, that's O&M, from 2024 to 2026 rose over 2.1 million, about 73%, an inexplicable amount relative to any inflation index. In conjunction with these cost increases, the annually increasing projected budget remain disjointed from actual expenses. In 2024, the projected O&M contribution to the road fund was 2 million. The actual road fund contribution for 2024 was 900,000, but the increased fares had already been set on the projected budget. In 2023, the 20 trip adult car and driver peak fare was $221.50. The projected 2027 peak increases that to $561, a 153% increase. This has led to falling ridership. How to address that? No 2027 fare increase while a methodology for calculating rates is put in place, a new methodology. Institute a 20% multi-ride discount on 2027 based on the 26 fares. set the fare box target from actual completed records. That is, discontinue the current method of setting the target from projected budgets and return to a three to five year look back on actuals. reinstate a citizen's advisory committee. Before considering schedule changes, we need to address cost problems. We need to think about a reduction in management overhead, a return to a basic three-person operating crew, We need to look at the anchor ticketing system. We need to explore a multi-year haul-out contract with shipyards, which is now possible due to a change in the Washington state bidding rules. And last but not least, we need to steer the vessel straight across the channel, traffic avoidance and heavy weather accepted, to save fuel and reduce turnaround time. Thank you very much. Thank you.

glenn and after glenn is i'm sorry

Yes, my name is Glenville 4453 Edens Road, Guemist Island. And first I want to say thank you for extending yourselves to try to solve this problem. I think that's what I look to the commissioners for and have for a long, long time. In fact, I was the one who was called back in 1979 by Jerry Mansfield, the commissioner chair at the time, Bud Norris, and a fellow up the river, if you remember. But anyway, he wanted a committee to be formed that would represent Guaymas Island, and we had a meeting. He asked me to do that, and we elected a ferry committee. I was on that ferry committee from 1979 until 1990. until 2013, I was on it for over 30 years. And we had a good working relationship with the commissioners, this public works. And we were all at the table. And I said that last time. We had a good working relationship. And this went out the window. And I don't know exactly what caused it. But I think that we need to go back to what was working. And I think that's where we're headed. And I applaud you for that. First of all, what basically I'm saying, we don't need to reinvent the wheel here. We need to go back to what worked. And that was this, the ferry committee sitting down with public works, ferry managers, and coming up with a mutually agreeable plan answers to questions and based on facts and based on look backs that were real and we had a five year from the beginning a five year look back in order to even out the cost of the operation and the haul outs so that's where we were left off and we that got replaced with a a formula for we started guessing or projecting and then here we are. So we know that doesn't really work. And so I think that we need to get the ferry committee back, which I know that the island would greatly appreciate. And so that's the one thing. And finally, in the cost of reducing costs, I know it's gotta be a huge issue because we just have, back when that ferry was first put into service, it was a two-man crew. In 1981, the Coast Guard demanded a third person on the crew, so they had two men on deck for the overboard drill. But during those times, the ferry operated quite fine, the system with just a few people. So now we have an abundance of people and the costs are high. So I think that I'd like to ask the commissioners to look into the idea of instead of having a ferry division, we get the ferry into the road department and be run and share information and share with that, share with the road department. So that's my answer to reducing costs. Thank you. Thank you, Glenn.

Next up, Boshe Morris. And after that, Gabe.

Good morning, commissioners, staff, concerned island residents. I appreciate the opportunity to be here to speak. I lived on the other side. I don't live on your side. I'm on the south side on Anacortes. I've been there for nearly 30 years and I too am a ferry user. What I miss most are the days of being able to easily learn of ferry news without needing to manage statistic-laden reports, please consider renewal of what we've just talked about, respected Island Ferry Committee that integrates with the commissioners and the staff, so that there might again be a venue of readily accessed and presented ferry news. Perhaps others have found it difficult to synthesize reports such as these, and it means the responsibility to come here to make our questions heard is that much more difficult. The report that I read, I believe, was published on September 17th. We're all gray hairs. I have other things to do. And I also need a little bit more time to figure this out. And thank you for whoever answered my questions recently saying, help, how do I read this stuff? Anyway. If the county and staff truly seek input on how to creatively move forward with input from outside your offices, a start could be with improved communications, which I hear is going on, and presentations of these reports. Because I don't live on the island, I somehow get very little access to upcoming meetings. um those of us on the anacortes side feel like we're hanging chads we really don't hear what's going on if it means i need to make a couple more trips down to your um building on the anacortes side to read postings i can do that but it's really not terribly convenient and um Anyway, thank you. Post COVID, the setting of that 2023 to 2028 timeline to achieve the mandated 65% ridership contributions to the ferry expenses seems unrealistically optimistic, and we have shown this by reduced ferry ridership, and I can attest to the reduced ferry ridership. You can attest to the reduced income. suggestions to reinstate the beneficial multi-side tickets have proven useful to the washington state ferry users please consider some data analysis of the current ridership perhaps that's something that the guinness ferry committee can be instructive in doing i know that as a an elder person i don't come over here that often I know that there are fewer high schoolers that come over and people make fewer trips. Let's find out who our ridership is. I don't think that is part of your synthesizing your reports. Thank you for your help.

Thank you.

Great t-shirt, Gabe. Gabe Murphy, 5799 Edens Road. Commissioners and staff, from what I've read lately, the county is struggling a bit financially. While I don't feel that the Glamis Ferry is making a significant contribution to these struggles, I do believe that the financial situations of both tend to put pressure on one another and make the situation feel worse and harder for everyone. I also understand that there is a feeling here at the county that the Glamis Ferry operation is costing too much money for the Skagit County taxpayers. While I can certainly agree that things are getting more expensive for everybody these days, the cost of operating the ferry as well as the fares that are being charged to the riders are significantly outpacing the increase in fuel, staffing, as well as the costs, as well as the consumer price index. when the rate payers do the math it makes them wonder if there's malfeasance which in turn erodes the trust between the public and the county we want to have trust over the last couple years several decisions have been made that affect how the ferry operates and how the ferry finances work which many of us believe are leading to an increased financial burden for all of us i believe it is time to take a second look at these decisions in the corporate world we call these two-way door decisions ones in which we are not physically legally or financially bound by the direction that we have taken which allows us to change course once we've assessed whether or not these decisions have had a positive effect one decision that needs to be reconsidered is the fair methodology while the original system that was in place for many years felt like it was not working for the county the fair payers at least felt that there was good traceability of the cost of operation and there was a higher level of transparency into what money was being spent and where in a way that people could have confidence in the system Several years ago, that system changed. The community argued against this change, highlighting several shortcomings of the new system that would lead to inflated costs and therefore inflated ferry fares. Those concerns have now played out in the real world and are having detrimental effects on the system and on the public. The other decision that needs to be reconsidered is the electronic ticketing system. The arguments that were made in support of this new system were greater efficiency, better rider experience, and easier data collection and reporting. Instead, this new system requires additional staff both in the foreground and in the background to operate. The rider experience has degraded significantly because of confusion, inconvenience, and the additional burden put on the riders to pre-purchase their own tickets. Additionally, it is my understanding that staff still needs to manually prepare ridership data both for financial accounting and Coast Guard reporting. In essence, the ticketing system has not provided the benefits that were sold to the public and is costing the ferry system additional money. Commissioners, you are the ones that make the decisions here based on the information you get from the staff and the public. It is your decisions that directly affect the county budget.

please reconsider these two-way door decisions i believe if we change course now we can save the county and its taxpayers a significant amount of money thank you thank you gabe there are people who came in later that did not get a chance to sign up if you'd like to step forward and give us your name and yeah go ahead i expected

Sorry I was late, dropping my kids off. I'm Becca Fong. I live at 6204 Guemist Island Road. And I am a member of the Guemist Island Ferry Committee. And all the folks who have been here today and all the folks who have submitted comments, I'm not going to reiterate them. Guemist Island Ferry Committee submitted some comments to the commissioners for consideration. So I won't reiterate those points. You have them to read through very thoroughly.

Thank you.

what i wanted to spend my time today talking about is it was interesting i said i had to drop my kids off at school today and they were wondering why i had dropped them off early right so they're hanging out waiting for school start and i said well i have to go to mount vernon to talk to commissioners about the ferry and they were like okay well is it going to be kind of a scary conversation and i said well Hopefully not, but you know, conflict is a good thing and I think commissioners you guys alluded to this at the beginning of this session is that we all want to be here to move towards solution and conflict. Sometimes there's kind of good heat and there's bad heat. i think we've had a lot of bad heat but i think we're moving towards good heat you need heat and you need friction to make things change and i feel like we've gotten to that point finally right as a member of the guaymas island ferry committee and as a member of this general guaymas community i know that we're ready we're really ready to sit down at the table folks have been here a very long time we are committed whether we all like it or not we We are in this for the long haul. The analogy may be like a long-term relationship. There's ups and downs, right? And we're all here to move into the next phase of it, right? Of course, there's big feelings about it. Everybody's working hard. You guys are working hard. Public Works is working hard. We're working hard as well to survive, to live, to help be a part of this process. Civil engagement is something that we don't see a lot. And I think while it feels uncomfortable, I think it's incredibly valuable and I appreciate your acknowledgement of that value. I think it's incredibly important. One thing I did want to talk about very quickly to underline, and you'll see this in a lot of the comments and you've heard it today, is behavior change. And it has been very successful. With the increases over several years, people have changed their behaviors quite a bit. And I don't think to anybody's advantage, not to the rider's advantages, not to the budgetary fairly elasticity changes either. You kind of are at a changing point at a very important juncture here is that while people do that behavior change long enough, it becomes a habit. If we continue on this trajectory, revenue will go down. And you will not be successful in meeting your targets. We're not going to be happy because it's going to continue to further detrimentally impact the way that we can move back and forth on the ferry. Be part of the Anacortes community. We're not different. I talk to a lot of people in Old Town. I'm like, that's my community too. When stuff is not going well there, I'm upset because that is the front door. And that's where I spend a ton of my time. So, I just wanted you to consider that. I appreciate that you guys do everything that you do. Don't look at this heat as bad heat. Look at it as good heat. And we're here to use that to make a change and move forward.

Thank you. Thank you, Becca. Anybody else who came in late that would like to step up now? Go ahead, please.

I'm Jeff Burdock I live on 5117 South Shore Drive and last time I was speaking here was the day before my birthday and I was asking for a birthday present to get the ferry committee back on and it looks like that that might something of that nature might happen and I will because of you but yeah thank you But anyway, I appreciate the discourse, and I appreciate Commissioner Burns coming out to the island. And I like the ideas that you're open to on the staff workshop that you had where you started to talk about a multi-ride discount, possibly not going back with a CPI index of like 4% for the 2027 increase, things like that. And just having a general conversation You know, also as part of the ferry, this is a big thing coming up in the near future, is the new design of the parking lot. And I was a little bit aghast when the engineering got passing... Devin Willard was our communication person with as far as the parking lot was. And now it's being transferred to Joel, and then Joel informed us last week that the parking lot is being transferred to the ferry division. I think that I'd prefer to see the parking lot being done by engineering somebody who's familiar with the costs and estimates of that and the construction of that i think that's important because the initial design was for 57 cars and Obviously, when they came out, there was over 100 cars in February 14th. So I think that communication needs to happen with that because that is going to be, if we are going to be riding the ferry, we are going to be needing to park, and we can't have an overflow of 47 cars parking somewhere under the island. So continuing this type of communication that we're developing and the smiles that we're getting and stuff like that, it's with each, you know, we've, I think we're growing, and so I'd like to continue that growth process with the parking lot discussion. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Jim. All right, last call for people in the room. All right, let's go ahead and go to people online. Please raise your hand, and we'll call on you. I have iPhone 2 with our hand raised.

Is it star six to unmute?

Star six? I think so. Is that it? Okay, I'm not sure. Looks like we have somebody right in the middle and I can't read the name. Go ahead and just turn on your speaker and state your name and go ahead.

Yes, can you hear me?

I can hear you, yes. Then the man with the beard.

Well, good day. Oh, well, this is Karen Schill. Is that the person you meant to talk to?

Yes, go ahead.

Okay. Okay. Well, good day Skagit County Commissioners and also Guimas Ferry staff. My name is Karen Schill. I live full time on Guimas Island. I drive and walk on the ferry, mostly walking on or deferring trips to the mainland since the last fare increase. I appreciate the ferry as essential to island life and I'm very grateful for the hard working crew. Thank you all. I have no doubt that managing and operating the ferry is a challenging, complex, and expensive job. Many islanders want to contribute ideas and experience to share the load of that job and to improve the ferry experience. To that end, I respectfully ask you to consider these points in your October 20 decisions regarding the ferry. First, pause further fare increases until a new method for calculating fares has been developed. Two, the fair setting process should include input from a reinstituted citizens advisory committee. And three, the fair setting process should also include compliance with the recent legal judgments regarding fair setting methodology. I would really appreciate you including these items in your October 20th agenda. And I also want to say I appreciate what seems to be a renewed or a new openness to a collaborative relationship with Islanders. And I really look forward to seeing what comes next. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Karen. All right. Let's see. Jim Lemieux.

Okay, Jim Lemieux on West Shore Drive. Listening to everybody, I kind of put it into a box from best of their ability down to the very committee bringing that back to full power is being a, having a parent as a commissioner, I know that commissioners are tugged many different directions, very demanding. I think the best of their abilities is the people who work below you that you, the people answer to, to best of their ability. I think that's a very important thing is to have the people in the departments beyond best of their ability to be able to work with the community and the crews. The crews are very important. I've always believed that people who work for you have a lot of answers. and then bringing back as al bush would say it's amazing how many people we have on this island who are retired professionals in their disciplines they can have so much more offer to the uh to the ferry department and Raising the rates as going on really hurts bringing the community together and the people together. We seem to be just chasing our tails until we get a break so we can put a system together. And from the parking lots to all these ideas that are coming up and the ticket systems and stuff, I think we need to look outside this box, look at the grants of multiple grants that seem redundant, that some grants just don't follow some of our projections, but you do like to see the money. So as a fairy committee working with The people below you, that's going to be the best of the ability. We need really good best of the ability to make this work. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. All right. All right. Who else? Somebody has to raise their hand. Oh, good. Andy, please. You have to unmute yourself, please.

Good morning and thank you, Commissioners.

Good morning.

Andy Leach. I live at 6151 South Shore Road. And, you know, commenting at this point is inevitably repeating many of the very fine points that were made by other Guamanians and an Anacortes resident who made it much earlier than I could to the meeting in Mount Vernon. But I'm going to risk repeating some things because I think they require emphasis. First of all, I think it's readily apparent to all, those who have access to all the numbers, and those of us who merely make observations by riding the ferry, that there's a measurable decrease in the amount of vehicular traffic At my age, I would like to be able to drive on more than, in fact, I feel I can afford. Walking stick is helpful, but there are times that I would like to drive across. But when I consider the actual cost of doing that, I take my trusty stick in hand and walk. I was a member of the ferry committee for a few years. Gabe and I came on at the same time. I had high hopes and expectations. Sadly, for me at least, they were a little unfulfilled in terms of the interaction and discourse that took place. I'm heartened by the appearance of a change in that. And I think that's very important that there be a positive communication flow between those of us who live on Guemas, those of us who depend on the ferry, who use it occasionally, and the folks who run it so well and manage it. But that focus on the island involvement needs to be made. Fair calculations. I've always found it challenging to understand precisely how things are done. Things are not quite as verifiable or intelligible or intuitive as I think they ought to be when we do our fair calculations. So initiatives to advance that I think would be effort well spent. I would ask, more specifically, that the proposed fare increase be placed on hold until such time as we've had a new method of fare calculation or a renewed look at the methods of fare calculation. Also, please use the resources that are available on the island. I'm talking about people, well-experienced people, who can make a no-cost contribution to this effort that is so vital to all of us. I'd also like for you to consider, positively, a proposal that I think has been made, and that is to come up with a fair discount.

um based upon uh multi-ride with you know with that i'm sorry andy with that we need to move on you got your three minutes and thank you i appreciate it thank you yes thank you very much all right next all right raise your hand oh good okay william If you turn on your, yeah, there you go. There you go.

I have a couple of suggestions of ways to save money with this very system. I think one would be to research alternative POS systems that don't require third-party credit card processors. which charged quite a fee for every credit card transaction. The other would be to bring back cash sales because more people would be able to ride the ferry paying without credit cards. Another would be to remove the assistant manager position that was brought on to bring about the new ticketing system, which also costs more money. to operate and i've been told that other ferry systems that started using it have discontinued the use of it because of the way it collects data on the ridership so i'd say that removing the ticketing system that is currently being used researching alternative pos systems that don't require third-party credit card processors and doing away with the new assistant ferry manager position would save quite a bit of money in the operation of this ferry system okay thank you you're welcome

next up who else wants to talk richard go ahead okay uh thank you hope you let you unmuted yourself or you muted yourself

How's that?

There you go. Good.

Better? Perfect. All right. Thank you. I wasn't planning to do this, so I may be a little scattered, but I just thought I'd give you a sort of vignette from one person, one fair user's life. My workaround for avoiding the high cost has been to use my little electric bike and hang as many panniers and sacks and so forth as I can on it. do my shopping that way. It gets a little difficult if I have to buy bird seed, for example, which, you know, comes in 40 pound bags. Anyway, at my age, which is 84, I don't have any illusions that I'm going to be able to keep doing this this routine for that much longer and at a time in my life and anyone's life when costs become more worrisome and budgeting becomes more imperative it's uh it's difficult to imagine coping with uh further increases in in ferry costs or ferry fares So I see an end point where somebody's gonna find me on the sidewalk with a broken bag of bird seed and other items. And I think in that case, the county should step up and see to my remains. So it's a difficult time to have to try to improvise because the options are fewer as you age. So that's my story. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go ahead and notify the coroner, but I hope that doesn't happen in the short term. But thank you, and thanks for feeding the birds. All right, next up. Thanks, Richard. Who else? I don't see anyone else. If I'm just not seeing you, please. All right. Well, with that, I think we probably would probably turn over to Commissioner Wiesen for his thoughts. Commissioner Wiesen.

Yeah, thank you very much. I really appreciate the good suggestions from the different people who spoke today. We'll definitely take all those in considerations and I think we all have to work together. I think we need to definitely improve the cooperation between County Commissioners, the Prairie staff and the people using the Prairie. We also have to remember somehow the cost, of the operation need to be covered by something. So I just thank you very much. I appreciate all the work, all the people on greenness have done and the fair committee, all the information they presented to the commissioners. I'm definitely going to review it and go forward from that. Thank you.

Mr. Burns.

Thank you all for the comments. I appreciate the civil discourse and giving us your ideas and thoughts. It's good to hear from you all. And I'm glad you were able to make it to the meeting either on Zoom or in person. So thank you for that.

yes please don't forget to close the public hearing oh thank you and uh originally the public comment period ended at the close of the public hearing but obviously that's commissioner discretion so okay okay i would entertain a motion to close the public hearing i still move okay i'll start with that then move and second it all in favor say aye aye aye aye all right thank you all right well thank you for this i really appreciate uh ms vong i agree with you i think civility is making a comeback at least in skagit county we are all a very tight community that kind of deserves or needs to respect each other and work well together and and this is not i'm not pointing fingers or either at us or at you this is just a time when we've got to be really thoughtful and help each other to come up with a very good solution um I have to say I think that the very committee coming back would be I think a very good idea I think that we need to have that as something that you you see things differently and you also have some very good ideas and as Alan pointed out there's some very very very bright people on the island that sometimes don't get a chance to be hurt so I think this all the other things we'll work through but in the end what we want to do is have something that you can look at the rate the increases whatever they might be and understand exactly how they got there what justified that and i think also we we can look at we appreciate some of the ideas today on on ways we can save money because that's going to be part of this but all in all we will work together and come up with a good solution and i really appreciate all you being here thank you With that, we are going to adjourn. And are we back today? 10-15. 10-15. We're back at 10-15. Thank you very much.

very seriously. I think it's important that the people have someone they feel they can trust when it comes to medical decisions. Generally, that's an important thing for people to feel like they can trust their doctors or any kind of medical professional. And so you want someone with a certain amount of expertise in that field. and someone who understands it. I also feel I'm well qualified because I have a lot of compassion. I really enjoy people, really enjoy working with people. Explaining things to people is a passion of mine. And I want people to feel like they can trust me, and I believe they can.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Do you have any questions for us?

No.

Not at all?

I don't believe so.

OK. um well thank you very much appreciate uh you putting your name in for the program thank you with that we will come to the next one thank you thanks Thank you very much. Appreciate you being here. We've got a series of questions. Commissioner Burns, you got the first one? Yeah.

Why are you interested in serving a Skagit County coroner, and what do you believe are the most important responsibilities of the position?

The Skagit County Coroner is just like other government jobs, a service job, a service to the community, which is something that I'm very interested in doing. That position, as I understand it, is going to be leading a team. That's something I've got some experience with. And the Office of Coroner is in charge of investigating all deaths that don't have an apparent and clear...

Bye.

Great, welcome back to Skagit County Commissioners. We're here, it is Tuesday, September 22nd, it's 10.15 in the morning, and we're here with Public Health to talk about a testimony regarding Home Investment Partnership Consortium, and with that, I will turn it over to George.

Good morning, Commissioners. George Kosvich with Skagit County Public Health. As you mentioned, we're here for a public hearing today. And this is tied to our home HUD federal funding. And what we call this is our Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report, really just an annual report, what we call the CAPER, and to take public feedback on that. So in terms of an agenda today, As I mentioned, the purpose is to have this public hearing to receive feedback, also talk about an opportunity for the public to share any further feedback if they'd like to. Run quickly through the home consortium background and spend most of our time talking about the accomplishments, challenges, really what is the core in our draft annual report to HUD. And the action we need today from you all is really just to open and close the public hearing. We don't need an approval on the report or anything, just this is an opportunity to have a public hearing.

Will there be open time for people to write in also?

Yes.

Yeah. So we've had the public comment period open since early in September, and then they'll have through the end of day tomorrow to make public comment if they choose to do so.

Thank you.

So in terms of background on the consortium, as I mentioned, this is federal funding from the Department of HUD, Housing and Urban Development. And it comes to a consortium. We formed this consortium of 20 different entities, so 17 cities, three counties, because none of the entities by themselves are large enough to qualify for the funding. And this was done in 2015. Skagit County is the lead agency. If anybody's interested in more information about the consortium, we have a website on the public health website, which goes into further detail. The CAPER is a piece of a larger five-year plan, a consolidated plan that covers 2023 through 2027. What we're here to talk about today is the accomplishments and progress in our 2025 program year. This falls as date fiscal year, so when we're talking about accomplishments, it's from July 1st, 2025 through June 30th of 2026. We've got a longer narrative draft on our website along with this PowerPoint. I kind of want to start talking about how we spent the funds this year, and then that leads into some of the program accomplishments. So in the program year, we spent about $2.88 million. In the chart here, a number of these are development categories, so we just have different categories of funding within home. There's general development, 35%. We have some special programs. Rescue Plan, American Rescue Plan funding that was allocated development, that's another 41%. And then Home, CHOTO, or Community Housing Development Organization, 10%. So if you combine those different categories together, 86% of the funding of that 2.88 million went into rental project development in all. 9% went to tenant-based rental assistance, or TBRA. And then 5% admin, which goes to the county in this case. so you might look at that and say well the annual funding award is only 834 000 how did you spend 2.88 million dollars and that's because the one nice thing about the the funding through home and hud is it does allow you to combine multiple years of funding and there are relatively lax spending deadlines so some of these development projects take a while to come together and we can essentially bank that money and spend it as we go And so when you look at spending over time, you see kind of the ups and downs of what that looks like. Last year, we spent about a million four, the year before, $520,000. And that up and down is really tied to those larger development projects. We had two of them that I'll talk about under construction in 2025. Before I do that, I just want to quickly talk about tenant-based rental assistance, or TBRA. This is what it sounds like. It's rental assistance that goes to a tenant. They get to choose the unit they want to spend it in. It's split between the three counties basically by population. So you'll see Skagit County has the largest population. Whatcom doesn't include the city of Bellingham. They get their own entitlement. next in terms of population, and then Island County. So you can see the spending. In all, 29 households were served during the program year. That represents 93 individuals. They're enrolled from our local homeless housing system, what we call coordinated entry. Most were very low income, so 97% were below 30% AMI. And most of those, and you could probably tell this just by looking at the mix, are family households. So either single parent or dual parent households with kids, that's how you get 29 households with 93 individuals. So mostly for serving family units through the rental assistance. In terms of accomplishments, in our narrative, we talk about serving those 29 households and 53 individuals. We also had 56 new units of affordable housing under development during that time period. We don't technically get to count these in our accomplishments because both of the projects completed in August, which is outside of the program year. But I think it's worth noting we got significant amounts of funding leverage so 14 and a half million in state housing trust fund another million and a half in infrastructure funding that's chip came in from those state and and federal sources to leverage our our home funding as well In terms of challenges, we did have one project withdraw from home funding. And so this is the Community Action Culture and Vista View project. The project is moving forward, but basically what they did was kind of do a cost-benefit analysis and say, hey, the project would move forward faster without this HUD funding. mostly because of environmental reviews there there are some pretty significant strings that come attached with the funding and so they they withdraw their award the projects moving forward just without home funding and that 407 000 award will roll into a future funding availability we didn't have any projects that applied for funding and this kind of comes back to what i mentioned where the money kind of stacks up over time and when it gets large enough then it can be meaningful to to use with all of these kind of federal requirements that come on top. So I think that's what we would hope is we'll have a project that will come forward in the next cycle that can use the unspent funds.

And with the environmental concerns with community action, it wasn't really environmental concerns, it was just the tediousness of the process. It's really a timing issue. Yeah, yeah.

And there are some consultation requirements with different federal services with essentially unknown response timeframes. Yeah, perfect. Couple of the development projects that we talked about. I mentioned the two that resulted in 56 units being completed. You all are familiar with Ballington Flats. It's a Volunteers in America project, 42 units. They've got their certificate of occupancy. They're working through lease up now. There's been a lot of demand for those units, including 12 for homeless veterans using VASH vouchers. And that's targeting 30% area median income and 50% area median income. You see the ribbon cutting there and then the picture of the completed units.

Why was I excluded from that ribbon cutting?

I think you were at a BHASO meeting with me. I was, yes. So we didn't get to have the fun with the ribbon cutting.

I think I was out of town with the family.

That was a really beautiful facility. It's a great space. Good size spaces. It really was nice.

I liked it. Absolutely. Great use of that land in Burlington, too. one that you may be less familiar with is is an out of county so it's within the consortium but it's an island county development it's our first real new construction project that we've done in island county using these funds and it is a three county consortium and it is important that all three counties benefit from the consortium this is a neat project in langley 14 units of affordable rental units a little bit larger family size units two and three bedrooms 60% and 80% AMI units, so a little bit higher among the income spectrum. It was really, I think the community rallied around it because these are essentially workforce units to help in Langley. And they similarly got a certificate of occupancy in August of this year.

And their ferry to Seattle really dictates a higher cost of living, higher housing. So it really is a very appropriate place for this to be.

yeah it can be real challenging to build there uh you know it's kind of like you have seattle construction prices and and not necessarily the wages like you said so that's the kind of quick rundown uh we you know we don't have a ton of time here today for our public hearing just wanted to hit the highlights we are still taking public comment through the end of day tomorrow and people can see the full caper in this draft online i want to turn it over you to commissioners to to I think open and close the public hearing.

And we'll check with anybody online. Let's go ahead and first open the hearing. Make a motion to open the public hearing. Is Commissioner Wiesen on?

Commissioner Wiesen is not on. We do have a few guests, but they might be left over from prior.

I will second that. So it's been moved and seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes. Great. All right. Let's go ahead and see if anybody online would like to make a comment. We've got two, three people I don't know, so any of you online would you like to make comments on the issue at hand? Okay, is that a hand up or is that my? Oh, it's your cursor, okay, good. Just about had to force Karen to talk. All right. it appears there's no one who would like to speak so i certainly entertain a motion to close the public hearing all right i'll make the motion close the public hearing i second that it has been moved and seconded all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed great pass great so the timing on till tomorrow end of tomorrow with any written comments and you never get them anyway this is just like one of those

I think it's kind of unusual for us to get comments on the report. On our action plan, we're kind of proposing a plan for the coming year or the five years we tend to get more public engagement. But of course, we'd welcome any feedback. We're required to have at least two public hearings every year through this program to hear from the public generally. So certainly people can communicate within this window or outside the window too.

Are there public hearings in the other counties, or is it just here because we're helping administer?

We just do them here. Where we've done some specific planning or programs, particularly for our five-year plan, or when we've amended some Whatcom County-specific spending, we do an extra effort to reach out to stakeholders in that region. But the requirement is just for the home entity to hold a public hearing.

okay thank you and yes we do get admin coverage but also thank you both for the involvement of this because this really is a big deal it is it does bring a lot of money and some pretty good size housing at times and that one in in langley is just fantastic again i love that look and the idea that it's really designed around families the two to three bedrooms really makes it very attractive because sometimes we forget the families trying to make find good housing in some of these hard hard to find housing places that do a lot of the work in the community so so good but so thank you both for that of course all right anything else nothing further all right thank you well this is and this is always it's always one of those feel-good things because you always bring us good news and so thank you it's appreciate it one more time and with that we'll go ahead and we will adjourn and be back in about a minute and a half 10 45.

At 10.45.

Oh, 10.45. Oh, we got time. Good. All right. Then we'll be back at 10.45 with the counsel of the defense attorney.

Bye. Thank you.

All right, good afternoon. It's Tuesday, September 22nd, 2006, 1130 in the morning, and we're here with the Board of County Commissioners for public comment period, county and individual success stories, and the miscellaneous, which would be announcements, letters, things of that sort. And so let's keep with tradition and let's jump right to the online with Loretta, with Tweedy.

Good morning Commissioners. Loretta Humble aka Tweedy Lake Kavanaugh. This morning I would like to discuss North Shore. Thank you for following through with the completed North Shore geotech study. Apparently those results then warranted the next study. Tom Weller stated in a recent email update We are expecting the completed bathymetric survey data around mid-October if everything goes as planned. We will then need some time to pass the survey on to the geotechnical engineer to ensure that lake bottom conditions work with their proposed repairs. This will take a week or two if no design revisions are required. am thankful and appreciative of these tests and your move forward as to a north shore restoration solution in the meantime though i would like to share some of the recent chatter on facebook as it relates to north shore posted by jay i'm so tired of delivery drivers not being able to deliver our packages on north shore due to road closed every time we tell them they need to follow the detour signs and again the next day delivery failed posted by mike i stopped trying i get like one out of five packages posted by julie i had a lowe's driver turn around on north shore and go back to town said cannot deliver road closed my response was how do you think i get home helicopter posted also by julie because our county needs those millions to build imaginary fish patches passages under roads way more important than repairing a county road that failed and hundreds of the residents need an emergency as an emergency as it's the only other way out just saying This is a very small example as to what Lake Kavanaugh residents have been enduring for the last five years. I'm hoping that this somehow resonates with you. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Maria. All right, to the room. Who would like to be first?

hello and good morning this is alka mccartney from anacortes this is comment number 34 to stop lithium battery storage systems and as well data centers and today's theme what we don't know we can't do anything about the other day i walked the padilla bay trail and it was quiet this is the bumper season between summer birds leaving winter birds arrival upon my return walk to the car i read a sign posted on the northern gate Quote, imazapyr and or glyphosate will be applied by ground-based methods under permit number da-da-da-da-da-da to control Spartina. There are no swimming, fishing, recreation, or other water use restrictions. And then there was a contact number of the Skagit County Noxious Weed Control Board. Listen. I know about side effects of these toxic chemicals that will go into the bay, including but not limited to cancers, liver diseases, reproductive harm, endocrine disruptions, so on and on and on. I've got all the data. But, you know, what we don't know, we can't do anything about. And that is the nature of this lithium best issue. I didn't know about battery energy storage systems until a year ago when I found out about it from a new friend, that person over there. I couldn't believe my ears at first. And then I did some investigating, and more and more was revealed about the horror of these things. And so this makes me wonder, I mean, what did you know, Mr. Browning and Mr. Wiesen, if you're online, or at the time, Ms. Janicki, that you all signed off on this? I mean, did you have real information about lithium battery storage systems that offer no benefit that I can see to the community? Rather, they offer harm from start to finish, from mining lithium via slave labor, toxic mining practices that leave dead zones in their wake, to the possibility of geothermal fires, to the horrible noise, and the fact that they draw power from a gas-powered plant and do not simply store energy for our local purposes, our community. No, these batteries have to charge and discharge and finally run out of battery life in a few years. And meanwhile, the stored energy is sold at a higher cost to places other than here. Did you know about any of this when you signed off? I mean, now, though, there's an opportunity to think about the content of comments I and others have made, you know? i know you are hopefully you've done your own research to see this is not something we can afford to have here and you can stop this now i mean what could possibly be holding you back thank you very much thank you laura

hi i'm laura weiss and i live in mount vernon i have a place on the flats as well as a place in town and i was driving with a friend to fredonia and pointing out where the planned best units are supposed to be. And he's one of my friends from my days when I spent much more time with Marines than I did with normal people. And we were going to pick up hay in the, you know, big farming area in Bow, and it's a beautiful drive. And, you know, the thing is, is that I know what happens when people pitch projects because I used to be with somebody who used to have to pitch things to movie studios and politicians, ad campaigns and stuff. And you do not lead with your worst information and you do not try to scare the client about how terrible your product is. So I understand what happened to you. Now, you are under no obligation to advertise for your competitors and I know that happened to you because why would they tell you? Because of course, you know, those are the other guys. and so I kind of have a lot more sympathy about receiving information that you assume is good and you take on trust just as the citizens in this county trust you to make the right decisions but you don't know what you don't know sometimes and that was sort of what happened with me when I sat there and thought to myself well I wonder what the tissue storage opportunities are for the coroner's department, being as they're so pinched on funding, because I heard about that. So I do know that you make your best decisions with what you have in front of you. But the problem is that now everybody is kind of looking at the situation as, well, things got pushed back. It's being reconsidered. And they're trusting you to look at what's good for the community. And of course, I'm going to sit there and say that the aqueous zinc oxide batteries, being as they go sploosh instead of kaboom, are a better option for us. And they're less toxic and actually work better in our cold conditions. Which I think is a significant savings to our county because if we were going to get any benefit, batteries that hold six to ten hours of charge, even in the cold, is a much better deal than ones that, in the very best circumstances, carry four hours of charge. And if it's cold, it's even less. Thank you very much for listening to me. Thank you.

Hi, Anthony Romano, 44681 Plot. I just want to apologize to anybody out there that if I've seen that I'm ranting and raving, it's all because I have all the proof of being harassed by the Sheriff's Department. Straight up perjury in a court of law by people, my neighbors. I'm not going to say their names. I got proof, proof of everything. And all the people that I've mentioned are working in concert. DOT, Parks and Recreations, you name it. I mean, they're all connected one way or another. And I've been lied to by Mr. Burns, I've been lied to by Mr. Peterson, straight up, so the voters out there, I don't know if I'd vote for them, but I'm not gonna. And I've got, right in their own words, right in their own words, everybody, proof of the harassment. and the violation of my rights that came, that I'm supposed to be able to enjoy, that came with my property when I bought it. That they have slowly made disappear with the assessor and the auditor and Chicago title, making fraudulent documents. AF763596, fraudulent. The one that should be on there should be 763556. But when I went down there to ask them to change it, because I brought it up to my attorney that this isn't right, and she said, oh, good catch, you know, and it was a typographical error. Well, they never fixed it. When I went down there, they actually called the police on me for nothing, because I was there on official business, and said, right on the phone, they're asking her, what's he doing? And in her words, what I heard right next to her, standing right next to her was, no, he's being polite. He just won't leave. And that's the way I usually am, is polite. But not when people are lying directly to my face and disrespecting me. Not answering records requests. prolonging court orders, working with the neighbors in the Olsen Creek, an unnamed tributary project that I asked for information for, and I just found this out. And who oversees that project? Oh, DOT, Bob Hotfield, the one that's been harassing me. Oh, and who bought the lot right behind me? The guy that started it all, Belfield, with false reporting. is a retired DOT. Oh my God, gee, how coincidental. And then the project goes from mile marker 94 to mile marker 105. Well, the mile marker 105 marker runs right in my friend Jonesy's front yard. Lo and behold, where Debbie Abel has her waterworks back there with the tank and Tim Roteman did it and all that stuff and I'm no historian and you know. But it's all written in their own words. And I got Brooks Construction harassing me. Yeah. All kinds of rape. I mean, I've got it all. Sheriff's reports, all pure harassment. And now I have court on the 24th that this woman claims that I'm prolonging the court system and doing all these things and I have no factual evidence. Right here. But they won't take it. They won't take my evidence. I don't know why. because they're corrupt all the way to the judges. And like Tom Wenzel, I want everybody to know that, you know, all the ex-cops, John Rose for one, what is he doing making water reviews under Bert Hoff's name? That's just three minutes. I mean, no one will answer that for me.

Anthony, that's your three minutes. Thank you.

You guys have a great day.

You too.

Many of Tom Lindell being involved in aboriginal rights down in Hornbeck, with Kalina Winters.

What did you have going on this week?

Well, I'll start with last week. So last week I traveled over to the east side, and I went to Timber County's caucus meeting. We were able to talk about what's going on with our timber here, what's working in other places. Talking about trust lands, for example, was one of the big focuses of the discussion. And we spoke with Up the Grove about his plan to increase our fees by another 2% on what they do to manage the timberlands. I did push back and say that we really need to be able to sustain off of this our budget that we were getting before. We were getting over $4 million about six years ago, and now we got less than $1 million off of the lands. And this is something that the schools are relying upon and not getting funds for, which is something that I definitely witnessed firsthand when I was at Cedar Valley High School. Then LSC fall meeting. So that's our legislative priorities for the state county association. And so we had some good discussions there about what we were going to be looking for from the state legislature. And that sheet should come out for everything that we reviewed there. So I won't go into all the details, but good discussions. friday went and did a tour of island unit which is out here near fur island just looking at what wdfw is doing for habitat restoration project out there with the salmon recoveries the idea but they're taking down dikes and levees trying to make it so that the water will more freely pass when we have flooding so that it's not It's not holding things back as a bottleneck. It's going to release the water a little bit better. But they're still leaving a break so that hopefully, if we get large tidal changes, it will not harm the dikes in the area. So they were trying to be mindful of allowing more flow, but not allowing it to come back and cause issues for them as they were doing their planning. So it was amazing to see all the work that's being done out there. and then this week i have a couple of meetings looks like edask northwest center for marine manufacturing technology maritime workforce roundtable i'll be doing that at the end of the week so that's one i'll i'll have to look forward to and i'm also going to do a scottish council of government's comprehensive economic meeting for commissioner weeson since he's out of town so great yeah i think that's all i have That's a busy week. Yep. And you're still loving it.

Oh, yeah. No, love the job. This is great to do. And you're very good at it still, too. Good. Thank you. Well, I met with a bunch of young businessmen last week, which is really fun because they're all in their 30s and they're all business owners. And I actually started my first big business when I was 25. So we had a lot to share about just the fears of... doing something that sounded like a great idea but not quite sure if you always have enough money and how do you build yourself up to the point where you can and and it was really just a good good good it was like two hours with these guys and it was way way too much fun really smart young people but just the it's it's kind of gutsy right now to start a business with all the regulations there's nowhere near that much regulation back in the dark years when i was a kid So, but yeah, it was fun. We went to a bunch of flood awareness meetings last week. There was the one big one at the dike as you come around by all the base soccer fields in Burlington. I think it's 15, but I'm not sure. But it was a huge group there. We had people giving up a good weather prediction and also looking at just like planning and things like that. I also went to the one though at Conway and there it was really well attended. Their risks are a few dikes that are a little fragile on a seepage and things like that. went to clear lake one you know they've got probably some of the biggest issues up there they've uh it they get isolated they become a an island you know any sort of flood so it was good it was fun and also growing up as i did on the knucksack it was i just i'm so accustomed floods were just always in the back of your head for pretty much eight months out of the year skog the scadrick council of governments had a big meeting last week and um that that means the three county commissioners and mayors from all the cities, including all the smaller cities up river. It was a really good meeting, just about some of the big changes in transit and roads. We've got a lot of bridges that need to be replaced, roads that have been damaged by floods, things like that. How do we make sure that we get them all going well? We had the big transit meeting also last week, which transit is, I actually rode my first bus in a long time last week just to see what it felt like. made a couple new friends and it was a it was actually a lot of fun i spent about 20 minutes on riding buses from burlington down here in the back around yes and just makes you realize that it's it's inexpensive it's easy to use it's when your jobs are like ours we've got to be moving all the time it's not reasonable for us but if i were retired i would be on buses a whole lot more than driving and it's safe and they work well um I'm part of the State Board of Health. You all heard that before. And we're redoing the whole food workers card process right now just because every half the kids in the nation have started out at some point working in some sort of food service. And the food service cards haven't been upgraded in a long time. And part of my rationale always is that 75% of all food board illnesses come from homes. And so people go home, they have food worker cards, start telling their mom and dad to start cleaning that cutting board and don't cross-contaminate. And is that beef, is that food cooked to 160 degrees, mom? So it really has its implications pretty much. It becomes a teaching opportunity for a lot of young kids and it also becomes kind of inborn after you've been doing it long enough you really do see things. So it's going to be kind of fun. That'll be next week. I'll be in... Bremerton for a couple days working on that and a few other things. I went to the Blanchard Mountain group on Friday and had one of the nicest walks I've had in a long time. We spent about four hours hiking through Blanchard, which is just the most beautiful mountain in the world. When you're in the forest, it's so spectacular. When you're on those cliffs looking out over the bay, it's just so spectacular. There's just so many ways that it just can't be beat. I always forget how beautiful it is until I'm there. And it was a good hike. They're all much younger than me, and they were anything but sympathetic. So I came... I woke up in the morning with a little sore the next day, but that was okay. And finally, I went up to Bellingham and got my Mount Baker ski pass for guys over 70, and it's only $250, $229, I guess, for a season pass, and they don't expect to use it much. But it was good. I realized that this is the year I skied at Baker for more than 65 years, so it was really a nice experience. pass to get so thanks and that's that was my week it was a fun week it was kind of busy but the hike on blanchard was worth everything it just it just feels so good to be up there a lot of people take horses up there and do a lot of horse riding at blanchard it's a really nice place yeah yeah

Well, thank you for covering a number of those meetings that I couldn't make it to while I was in Ellensburg.

Well, you were in the very important one, especially getting a chance to meet with Up to Grove, and I hope he listened because, yes, they don't have a lot of money. In fact, they're really poor. Yes, it's because of the way they've run their business, and they need to rethink their business plan because they're not going to be able to get it off the backs of all the counties that have forests in their counties. That's not where it should come from. It should be coming from doing good business practices doing some logging yeah that is what the land was set aside for yes it was yes all right anything else commissioner weeson do you have any uh anything you'd like to share yeah i want to thank both of you going to their meetings uh

commissioner burns going to llc and the timber counties and commissioner browning going up on blanchard mountain blanchard mountain you know has a great history um it was it is dnr land and um they agreed to set aside i think it was 1200 acres the core will not be harvested anymore but they will still have areas around that where they will harvest and That is, you know, they went and harvested back in the 70s, I think it was. And then they have this nice place where they can now do the jumping off with the pair gliders. And so it's an interesting area and all the different lakes that are up there. And so, yes, it's a beautiful area. And thank you both for doing those things for me when I'm gone.

It's our pleasure. I feel like I benefited tremendously. So thanks for being gone. And we did go through the forest. It was done in the 70s, and it's coming back beautifully. And we looked at the two new possible logging sites, and they're relatively small, and they're going to be fine. So it was just a good opportunity to see the future logging on that mountain. It's not going to really have the impact people are afraid of. But, yeah, that was a good time. Thanks.

when you go through that you can see the different types of logging that they've done and the thinning they've done and all the different things and the different you can see the underbrush and the the fuel was still growing there but how well they cleaned it off in certain areas where they've done the logging on it

yeah and i was there with tom westergreen who i actually grew up with and he's like the most knowledgeable guy in the world on forest he showed me all the different kinds of trees and he just for me they all look green and pretty soon i'm learning that they're how i define how i identify different trees so that was good so i got a chance to learn a bit too all right he's got a very nice farm up in whatcom county it's a tree farm up there some very large trees up there yes all right well we look forward to having you back and with that we're going to go ahead and adjourn and we are off for the rest of the day oh yeah we are okay yep well that's the last official meeting that's the official meeting good all right thank you all thanks for joining us and we will adjourn